When the last word of his grave speech had been uttered the men silently drew up a resolution which read in part as follows:
“If anyone is arrested for this day’s work we will reassemble and punish to the death any man who offers the molestation.”
Coffins for the four bodies that lay in shrouds in the old hotel were brought from Lexington. The remains of the Tollivers, Craig, Jay, and Bud, were hauled to Elliott County for burial, while that of Hiram Cooper was removed by his friends to the family burying ground in the outskirts of Rowan County.
The death of these four men brought the total number slain in the Martin-Tolliver feud to twenty-one.
Tragedy stalked two of the crew who had been connected with the killing of John Martin while he sat handcuffed in the baggage coach: Jeff Bowling killed his father-in-law in Ohio and was hanged for the crime; Alvin killed the town marshal of Mt. Sterling, not many miles from Morehead, and was sent to the penitentiary for twenty-one years.
Although Craig Tolliver lived by the sword and died by it, there was no record to be found that he ever actually killed a man. Rather he was credited with plotting the deeds, molding the bullets for others to fire.
The life of Allie Young, the son of the prosecuting attorney, Taylor Young, whose life had been attempted, was saved because on the day of the street battle he was in Mt. Sterling in an adjoining county.
One old woman who witnessed the open battle that day on Railroad Street became raving insane. And Liza, Jay Tolliver’s wife, fled in dismay across the mountain never to return.
Marion, brother of Craig, had no hand whatever in the trouble. He lived his days in peace within sight of the county seat of Rowan tending his farm and looking after his household. If his kinfolk had heeded him there never would have been a Rowan County war which put a blot upon the community that took years to erase.